The sharing of digital content among computer devices is fairly common. The user of a computer device has an incentive to share their content in order to gain access to additional content provided by the users of other computer devices. This incentive is particularly strong when the cost to the user of sharing the content is low or negligible. Additionally, such sharing of digital content provides the producer of the content with an additional marketing and/or advertising channel.
In some environments, however, there are disincentives to sharing content. For example, licensed content may include usage rules that restrict or prevent the sharing of the content. Such licensed content includes content subject to digital rights management (“DRM”), for example, including certain audio and video content. Because of these usage rule restrictions, the user of a computer device having this content may not have any incentive to share their content. As such, the additional marketing and/or advertising channel provided by content sharing is lost.
Further for example, a user of a wireless device in a wireless network may incur additional disadvantages. For example, the cost of making a data call on a wireless device over a wireless network is relatively high when compared to the cost of a similar data exchange by a desktop computer connected to the Internet. Additionally, the data throughput during a data call by wireless device over a wireless network may be substantially less when compared to the data throughput of a similar data exchange by desk top computer connected to the Internet, and thus the data call may be relatively slow. Further, for example, a wireless device typically has significantly less memory when compared to other computer devices, such as a desktop computer, thereby limiting the ability of the wireless device to store data comprising the content. Thus, these relatively high costs, relatively low speeds, and relatively limited storage capacities may be a disincentive to the user of the wireless device to share content over a wireless network.
Therefore, there is a need it to provide improved apparatus and methods for sharing licensed content among computer devices.